Normann, 2001 Ch. 18 - Bringing External and Internal Dynamics in Line - quite OK "deck" Flashcards
Explain the differences between management and leadership according to Normann
If management is the art of achieving efficiency within a more or less defined framework, leadership is the art of navigating an organisation through structural changes. Leadership therefore need to know both the external (contextual and business) and internal dynamics.
What does unbudle mean?
Unbundle = reinterpreted themselves in order to reframe.
What does companies have to do when the world seems to be more blurry? (as the world is today).
We need to conceptualize, but we have to do it in a high pace. Reconfiguration among firms happening. The barriers seems to be more hazy today than before. Today physical attributes, such as factories or houses do not shape and identify the firm today. The lack of boundaries do not key us think less about them, ironically, we have to think more of them. ‘if we are to keep our sense of purpose and identify, we must have an idea of what we are and who we are’. But the more the physical world becomes blurred, the more this sense of identity must come from reflection, from activities performed in the conceptual domain. Organisations needs to constantly reshape themselves, so they need to search for values, capabilities and principles more in the abstract domain than in the physical domain. Therefore it is important to know what the hubs of reframing are when we navigate through the conceptual structure. Is it assets? Customer base, a certain social order? A code of behaviour? A mission or a fundamental values?
Are Prime Movers usually first. and why?
Prime Movers are usually first, due to the adaption ability, few systems are safe from invaders and reconfigurations.
We don’t have the time today to do the traditional strategy planning (sequence must merge to a more dense, more compressed process).
“The boss” leadership style: what is its pro’s and con’s?
Macho/types bosses (mainly known as the ‘the boss’) is often good when it comes to pure efficiency in terms of cost and performance but seems to be counterproductive in terms of reframing. Leaders need to take the emergent nature of change into consideration and develop accordingly.
What is a vision?
Humans are able to look rom transcend through the time. Past-present-future. p.276
VISION =
- definitely is in the time domain, about the future. It implies a gap between an imagined future state and the present state.
- Vision always implies a gap between now and future.
- vision MAY be about effect on external world, but it may also be only about the state of our company (size, profitability, competence, how to make shareholder rich, how to gain power).
What is mission?
Mission=
- is not related to time in the same manner. Instead, mission is related to what value creating domain we participate in and how, i.e. what role we have in what larger system.
- Mission is a description of what difference our existence makes to the context we function in.
- Mission always implies reasoning in terms of what affects you have on the external world and its betterment.
Mission can be an desired goal, or we can fulfil the mission today. But we cannot fulfil the vision today!
Should we state our mision as a vision, or our vision as a mission?
We should state our vision as mision (Världsmästerskap = VM)
What happens if we state our vision as a mission?
We can state our vision as a mission, then we say something about How in the future we would like the larger environment to change or to be affected (become better), as a result of our own actions.
Normann says that leaders and companies that is remembered are those who have a vision formulated in terms of a mission.
Plot the mission and vision in the crane model, and use to correct arrows, according to how mision and vision have an impact on the creane model (model).
We can see that mission helps the company to upframe itself by forcing the company to have a higher systemic logic.
and the vision helps the company to “shape” the future, or to work towards an desirible future.
Normann says there are four different kinds of company styles, based on their capacity to conceptualize and take action. Explain the model.
Hysterical hyperactive = no structure, lack of politics, compartmentalization and lack of aggregation, the leaders will lose legitimacy. Frustration and cynicism will ensue
Analysis paralysis = to slow to change
Sinking ship = lead nowhere, lack of both action and conceptualization.
Immediate concept-based action. = action is based on pre/reflections and the advanced building on concepts.
There are four tyoes of organisational culture, according to Normann P.284
Individuals, according to Normann, development depends on three dimensions:
- Between the experience of the past and an envisioned, meaningful future.
- Between constrained ‘here-and-now’ and the image of the larger system in which the here-and-now is embedded.
- Between the individual self and the social community of which the individual is a part.
Companies need to change the view of the employees from receiving order takers (passive) to actors (active) that contribute to create and produce something that has meaning to the company.
- Routine Inc. = favors short-term activities , and employees is passivized. Their creativeness and enthusiasm will not be mobilized.
- Wild West = highly mobilized and entrepreneurial, but no guiding on the vision, this situation is one of the hysterically hyperactive organizations.
- The Fan Club = values more a reactive than proactive approach. Not untypical for high technology startups, often led by domination and charismatic entrepreneurs.
- Crusader United = employees is actors. But still united by a matrix of overall values and where the employees are involved in the joint enactment of a meaningful future. This is the criteria for ‘recurrent purposeful emergence’ and the Great Company.
